Application tab order in taskbar

[Guest]

In Karmic (not sure abt previous Kubuntus), I'm unclear what order the application tabs in the taskbar appear. For example, if I have a webpage open in a Firefox window, then click Tools > Downloads to open the Download Manager, the Download Manager tab appears before (to the *left* of) the tab for the window I previously had opened. Also, it looks like some applications always have precedence to others (e.g. tabs for Dolphin always seem to be left-most).

Is there a way to set it so the tabs on the taskbar appear in order of application launch (first app launched left-most) ?

Also is there a way to set it so that all applications are ungrouped by default in the taskbar?

Thanks in advance.

[kubicle]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

Right-click on empty space in your task manager and choose Task Manager Settings.

Choose your preferences for sorting and grouping.

[Guest]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

Ah, great, thanks. Couldn't find the task manager settings till I closed some running programs. Appreciate your help.

[mastropi]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

Hello, I followed the instructions above in order to be able to have the tabs sorted in the order the programs are opened (from left to right), as is the case in Windows, while having the tabs from the same programs grouped.

So, in the Task Manager I set Grouping "By Program Name", and then tried the two most feasible options to accomplish the sorting: "Do Not Sort" and "Manually", but in neither case the order in which I opened the programs is respected. For example, I open first Dolphin and then Firefox, and they are in the correct order. However, the tabs start switching around in an apparently unexplainable way when I start opening more instances of the same program (which are grouped together by program name).

The order seems to be respected if I set Grouping to "Manually" or to "Not Grouped".

Any idea what can be going wrong? Are the two forementioned sorting options behaving as they should? To begin with, what is the way the "Do not Sort" and "Manually" option should work?

Thanks for any tip

--------------
Toshiba Tecra A10
Kubuntu 9.10 64-bit, KDE 4.3.2

[skunk]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

Manual sorting means that you can drag and drop the buttons on the taskbar to reorder them

[Snowhog]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

"Only when task bar is full"

Have you played with this? By default, it is checked.

[mastropi]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

I just tried "Only when the taskbar is full" option and I get the same problems as before.

I noticed the following behaviours:
(a) Manual sorting of the tabs stops working for all kinds of moves when one of the tabs groups at least 2 instances of a program. In that case, moving another tab (grouped or non-grouped) in front or after that grouped tab is ignored.

(b) It is usually the case that when a new instance of an already running program is opened, that tab (now grouping 2 instances of the program) moves to the right-end, regardless of where it was.

(c) In any case the (re-)position of the tabs when programs are opened or closed seems to be quite random, I was not able to figure out any reasonable rule.

My questions are now:
How can I check if the selected options are really applied and used by KDE?
May I be missing some package installation? From what I read at related messages in the Forum, it looks like this problem does not happen for other people...

Thanks

[kubicle]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

I just tried "Only when the taskbar is full" option and I get the same problems as before.

I think this option only affects grouping, it makes little sense with sorting.

As far as sorting goes, I think task manager considers a freshly created group a new task (which it technically is) and puts it last (right-most), if you add more instances to an existing group it's not a "new" task anymore (just a new instance added to an existing group task) and stays put.

At least that is how it works on my machine (I use smooth tasks instead of the regular task manager, but since they both use libtaskmanager, the behavior is likely the same with regular task manager)

So there is probably nothing wrong with your configuration, but I guess this could be considered a usability bug or a wishlist item ("new task group item should inherit the position of the application that is grouped in task manager" or something along those lines.

[mastropi]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

Thanks for the explanation Kubicle.

So, where can I add this wish to a wish list?

Otherwise, where is a good place to look for a task manager for Kubuntu that may behave differently than the regular libtaskmanager?

[kubicle]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

So, where can I add this wish to a wish list?

Upstream KDE is the best place: https://bugs.kde.org/

Of course some people might prefer moving group to the last when a new instance of a program is started, so perhaps this should be configurable. Still, it should definitely be consistent...the task/group should either always move to the last or always stay where it is, not like it currently is.

Otherwise, where is a good place to look for a task manager for Kubuntu that may behave differently than the regular libtaskmanager?

AFAIK, all KDE task manager widgets out there (plasma-widget-smooth-tasks, plasma-widget-fancytasks and plasma-widget-daisy) use libtaskmanager, so this "bug" will likely affect all of them.

[mastropi]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

Ok, thanks for the link.
Today I have created this wish at https://bugs.kde.org/ (assigned Bug 232455).

In any case, could you point me to the source code for the libtaskmanager (or how to get it)? I would like to see if I can contribute in making this improvement.

[Snowhog]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

Task management library - Author(s) and Maintainer(s)

[kubicle]

Re: Application tab order in taskbar

In any case, could you point me to the source code for the libtaskmanager (or how to get it)? I would like to see if I can contribute in making this improvement.

If you want to download the sources for the current version in kubuntu (including possible kubuntu patches), you can use 'apt-get source -d packagename' to download the sources into the current working directory (you need to have source repositories enabled, IIRC they are by default).

If you wish to view the sources for the latest KDE SC devel version (4.5) , you can download snapshot tar packages from kde ftp (ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/) or straight from kde svn repository (Instructions: http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Star.../Anonymous_SVN)